Читать книгу In the Shadow of the Hills - George C. Shedd - Страница 8

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“He said it would be our honeymoon––and––and I had never been away from here.”

“What’s his name?”

She hesitated in uncertainty whether or not she should answer.

“Ed Sorenson,” came at last from her lips.

Steele Weir slowly thrust his head forward, fixing her with burning eyes.

“Son of the big cattleman?” he demanded.

“Yes, sir.”

“And you love him?”

“Yes, oh, yes!”

Weir sat back in his seat, lighted a cigarette and stared past her head at the opposite partition. The evil strain of the father had been continued in the son and was working here to seduce this simple, ignorant girl, incited by her physical freshness and the expectation that she should be easy prey.

“Well, I doubt if he loves you,” he said, presently.

“He does, he does!”

“If he really does above everything else in the world, he’ll be willing to marry you openly, no matter what his father may say or do. That’s the test, Mary. If he’s in earnest, he’ll agree at once to go with us to the next county seat to-morrow and be married there by a minister. Isn’t that true? Answer me that squarely; isn’t it true?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then by that we’ll decide. If he agrees, well and good; if he refuses, that will show him up––show he never had any intention of marrying you. I’m a stranger to you, but I’m your friend. And you’re not going to Los Angeles unmarried!”

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The last words were uttered in a level menacing tone that caused Mary Johnson to shiver. To her, reared in the humble adobe house on her father’s little ranch on Terry Creek, a man who could manage the great irrigation project seemed a figure out of her ken, a vast form working against the sky. His statements were not to be disputed, whatever she might think.

“Yes, sir,” she said, just above a whisper.

“All right. Now we’ll wait for him. He was coming back for you, wasn’t he?”

“Yes. I was to stay at the hotel till train time.”

“Is this your grip?”

Weir jerked a thumb towards a worn canvas “telescope” fastened with a single shawl strap, resting in the corner of the booth.

“It’s mine. Yes, sir.”

“How old is Ed Sorenson,” he asked, after a pause.

“About thirty, maybe.”

“How old are you?”

“Seventeen next month.”

“But sixteen yet this month.”

“Yes, sir.”

He said nothing more. As the minutes passed, her timorous gaze continued steadfastly on the stern countenance before her. She dully expected something terrible to happen when Ed Sorenson appeared, for she knew Ed would be angry; but she had been powerless to prevent the intrusion of this terrible stranger.

Fear, in truth, a fear that left her heart cold, was her feeling as she contemplated Weir. Yet under that, was there not something else? A sense of safety, of comforting assurance of protection?

“You––you won’t hurt Ed if he won’t go with us?” 33 she asked, in a low voice. “If he gets mad and won’t marry me here, I mean?”

The man’s eyes came round to hers.

“I’ll just break him in two, nothing more, Mary,” was the calm answer.

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